Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Hearts of Darkness

 

"We suspect strongly that history will view the last 20 years as a period of collective madness in the United States.   It is a madness brought on by the gods to the proud and those who would be as gods, but stumble and fall through a tragic flaw, an error in judgement.  Often that flaw is related to the strength that had made them great.  The US can fall from greatness through pride and imbalanced judgement, and therein lies the recipe for tragedy."

Jesse, 15 April 2008 

 

"What I have called  the trousered ape and the urban blockhead may be precisely the kind of man they really wish to produce.  They may be intending to make a clean sweep of traditional values and start with a new set." 

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

 

"These are peoples that have lost the power of astonishment at their own actions. When they give birth to a fantastic fashion or a foolish law, they do not start or stare at the monster they have brought forth. They have grown used to their own unreason; chaos is their cosmos; and the whirlwind is the breath of their nostrils.  These nations are really in danger of going off their heads en masse; of becoming one vast vision of imbecility, with toppling cities and crazy countrysides, all dotted with industrious lunatics.” 

G.K. Chesterton, In Defense of Sanity 

 

"Your adversary, the devil, prowls the earth like a roaring lion, seeking those whom he may devour." 

1 Peter 5:8

 

"Do you think he is so unskillful in his craft, as to ask you openly and plainly to join him in his warfare against the truth?  No; he offers you baits to tempt you.  He prompts you what to say, and then listens to you, and praises you, and encourages you.  He bids you mount aloft.  He shows you how to become as gods.  Then he laughs and jokes with you, and gets intimate with you; he takes your hand, and gets his fingers between yours, and grasps them, and then you are his." 

J.H.Newman, The Times of Antichrist

 

Stocks rallied today as some Fed heads sought to reassure the markets that their action would not be excessively bubble-unfriendly. 

The Dollar fell again.

Gold and silver rallied in the morning, but fell in the afternoon trade to maintain some thinner gains.

The VIX dropped.

There are numerous earnings reports this week.

Non-Farm Payrolls on Friday.

 Let us commend ourselves to the mercy of God.

Have a pleasant evening.

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Shenanigans Watch - Bulls Rally, Non-Farm Payrolls Friday

 

"And crying out with a loud voice, the man said, 'What business do you have with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High?   For God's sake, do not torment me.'   For Jesus had said, 'Come out of the man, unclean spirit.” 

Jesus asked, 'What is your name?'  And the spirit replied, 'My name is Legion, for we are many.'  And the spirit begged him not to banish them. 

Now a great herd of pigs was grazing on the hillside, and the spirits begged him, saying, 'Send us to the pigs; let us enter them.'   So he let them.  And the unclean spirits came out, and entered the swine, and the herd, numbering about two thousand, rushed down the steep bank into the sea and were drowned." 

Mark 5:7-13 

 

Stocks were in rally mode today as the Street shook off all its concerns from last week, and let the good times roll.

The Dollar and the VIX dropped from their recent highs.

Gold and silver rebounded a bit from the pummeling they took last week.

There will be a Non-Farm Payrolls report on Friday.

It is anticipated to be weak, because the numbers were reported during the height of the recent surge in the omicron variant of the Covid virus.

Have a pleasant evening.

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - Let It Snow - Bomb Cyclone Nor'easter Rolls Up the Coast

 

"Unfortunately there is a small but powerful oligopoly of privilege that is trying to project themselves onto the global stage while believing that they are immune to ordinary consequence, and have become addicted to the notion that 'others must pay' for their failures. 

Moral hazard comes from rewarding bad behaviour in markets with wristslaps and bailouts.  It is a danger to the economy and to the public." 

Jesse, Moral Hazard, 22 March 2008

  

"I told you once that I was searching for the nature of evil.  I think I've come close to defining it: a lack of empathy.  It's the one characteristic that connects all the defendants.  A genuine incapacity to feel with their fellow man.  Evil, I think, is the absence of empathy."

 Gustave M. Gilbert, prison psychologist at Nuremburg

 

“Similarly this applies to those who are fearful, for they are so gripped by their own worries that they ignore the suffering of others.” 

Thomas Aquinas

 

Stocks managed to claw back into the green after another volatile day. 

Gold and silver were hit again.

The Dollar chopped sideways.

We will be getting the January Non-Farm Payrolls report next Friday.

Have a pleasant weekend.

 

 

Stocks and Precious Metals Charts - As Old As Babylon

 

"A society that is merely expedient does not produce men of conscience.  A society that narrows the meaning of 'success' to the big money and in its terms condemns failure as the chief vice, raising money to the plane of absolute value, will produce the sharp operator and the shady deal." 

C. Wright Mills 

 

"All of the traditional religions teach that human beings are finite creatures and that there are limits to any earthly enterprise. A Japanese Zen master once said to his disciples as he was dying, 'I have learned only one thing in life: how much is enough.'  

He would find no niche in the chapel of The Market, for whom the First Commandment is 'There is never enough.' Like the proverbial shark that stops moving, The Market that stops expanding dies. That could happen. If it does, then Nietzsche will have been right after all. He will just have had the wrong God in mind."

Harvey Cox, The Market As God 

 

"Thus did a handful of rapacious citizens come to control all that was worth controlling in America.  Thus was the savage and stupid and entirely inappropriate and unnecessary and humorless American class system created.  Honest, industrious, peaceful citizens were classed as bloodsuckers, if they asked to be paid a living wage.   And they saw that praise was reserved henceforth for those who devised means of getting paid enormously for committing crimes against which no laws had been passed. 

Thus the American dream turned belly up, turned green, bobbed to the scummy surface of cupidity unlimited, filled with gas, went bang in the noonday sun. 

 E pluribus unum is surely an ironic motto to inscribe on the currency of this Utopia gone bust, for every grotesquely rich American represents property, privileges, and pleasures that have been denied the many.  An even more instructive motto, in the light of history made by the Noah Rosewaters, might be: 'Grab much too much, or you'll get nothing at all.'

And Noah begat Samuel, who married Geraldine Ames Rockefeller.  Samuel became even more interested in politics than his father had been, served the Republican Party tirelessly as a kingmaker, caused that party to nominate men who would whirl like dervishes, bawl fluent Babylonian, and order the militia to fire into crowds whenever a poor man seemed on the point of suggesting that he and a Rosewater were equal in the eyes of the law." 

Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You Mr. Rosewater

Stocks failed to hold their gains after another volatile session.

Gold and silver were hammered to their lows.

The Dollar soared to a multi-year high on interest rate increase  speculation.

AAPL reported decent earnings after the bell.

A nor'easter is bearing down on the metropolitan NY area and New England.

Have a pleasant evening.